Private sector added 179000 jobs in April - ADP

Source: MarketWatch

By Jeffry Bartash WASHINGTON

(MarketWatch) -- Employment in the U.S. private sector increased by 179,000 in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to payroll data compiled by Automatic Data Processing Inc. The dropoff from March's increase of 201,000 -- revised upward to 207,000 Wednesday -- is likely to disappoint investors. In a separate report, the outplacement firm Challenger Gray said announced company layoffs fell to 36,490 in April, the third lowest level in 16 months. The government sector accounted for more than one-quarter of the planned job cuts. (Adds revised March figure from ADP.)

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/private-sector-added-179000-jobs-in-april-adp-2011-05-04?link=MW_latest_news

"The government sector accounted for more than one-quarter of the planned job cuts." --from the OP

What a tragic contrast with the "New Deal" era, when the government acted to relieve the suffering of vast joblessness, by creating public infrastructure works--building up community and trade with the construction of libraries, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, rural electrification projects--saving homes and farms, and putting money in the pockets of the poor majority (the only way to end a Depression)--and honoring and funding public service (teachers in public schools, doctors/nurses in public hospitals, fire fighters, park rangers, police, librarians, etc.

Firing teachers? Closing libraries? Cutting back emergency services? These are INSANE actions in this economic circumstance. And they are symptomatic of the insanity in the halls of government, paid for by our corporate rulers.

"Small government" cannot win against predatory capitalists. They will skin us alive--they ARE skinning us alive--without strong government of, by and for the people as the kickass advocate of the majority.

If THEY are "big"--the multinational mega-corps and mega-banks--our government needs to be "big" to control their predation.

Our state and federal governments should be hiring NOT firing--to stimulate the economy by building/repairing infrastructure and other tasks and maintaining and expanding services. They should be taxing the rich to pay for the jobs they didn't create. They should be dunning billionaires not teachers. They should be punishing the traitorous multinational corporations that are outsourcing jobs. They should be dismantling these dangerous gigantic monopolies. They should be defending democracy and throwing the corporate-run 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines out of our election system and banning corporate money in political campaigns.

It is APPALLING that our state and federal governments are firing people (let alone busting unions). This is part of the corporate prescription that destroyed economy after economy in Latin America over the prior decade. They experimented with these ruinous policies in the "third world." Now they're turning the U.S. into the "third world." Latin America fought back (with, among other things, transparent vote counting), and we can, too, but first we have to realize how UPSIDE DOWN our government polices are. This SHOULD NOT BE--a Great Depression at the bottom, NO Great Depression at the top, and the government FIRING people.

Furloughs?

Discount cards?

But if they weren't letting the rich and the corporate get away with paying NO TAXES and if they weren't GIVING AWAY billions and billions of our tax dollars to rip-off 'contractors' with posh lobbying offices in DC and to murderous fuckers like the Colombian military ($7 BILLION to them alone), there would BE NO budget 'crisis.'

I'm sorry, but you have to have some understanding of where all the money is going before you can begin to understand why they trying to take it out of OUR hides, again--now by looting Social Security and Medicare, by destroying the public school system, by drying up all services, by looting the poor and the middle class in every way imaginable and by FIRING public employees when they should be HIRING them. It's NOT that there is no money. It's that all the money is going into the pockets of the rich, who create no jobs here, but rather in foreign slave shops, while benefiting also from deregulation and an extremely unfair tax code, and into the pockets of war profiteers, who understand that, to stay on this gravy train, they have to CREATE wars.

There is NO lack of money. It's all going to wrong people for the wrong things. And buying into this as a "budget crisis" that the poor have to pay for is rightwing/corporate ideology.

...in millions of households across the country. For those who are experiencing one because prices keep going up and pay stays the same or goes down, that's a lot more relevant than the country's "budget deficit".

Still, they want more austerity for the American people, and prosperity for those who are already ultra-wealthy. It makes me ill that people buy in to the idea that cutting anything and everything that helps Americans will have a positive effect on the economy. What will happen is the exact opposite, and if they get away with it, there will be more cuts to come.

"There is NO lack of money. It's all going to wrong people for the wrong things. And buying into this as a "budget crisis" that the poor have to pay for is rightwing/corporate ideology. "

I couldn't have said it better myself.

However, that is not going to solve our short-term problems.

Look at the public employees of California. They got $1.00 paychecks a few times, FFS.


We should be thrilled that the private sector is increasing hiring.

...if our entire economy is in the toilet and the American people can't afford anything, anyway? When prices go up on everything, like like they have, and income remains the same, people can't spend the way they used to. When people can't spend like they use to, or even worse, they get laid off, the entire economy suffers, even for people who still have jobs.

Laying people off in the public sector isn't going to help the economy recover - it makes it worse because people in the public sector pay taxes, too, and will be forced to go on unemployment.

When people can barely afford to put gas in their car and put food on the table, they could give a shit about the deficit, particularly when it means other things are cut, too - like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. When small businesses are suffering because people can't afford to spend money, they don't give a shit about the deficit, either.